This invention relates to optical components generally, that is, components which operate in the optical domain. Such components are designed for use in various systems which utilize optical fibers, such as optical communications systems, optical data processing systems and optical switching systems. Specifically, this invention pertains to an optical parallel-to-serial converter.
The development of optical fiber and optical semiconductor technologies in recent years has made possible various types of optical communications systems and optical switching systems. To utilize the full bandwidth and speed available in optical systems, it has become necessary to design and fabricate optical logic and switching components which eliminate the necessity for electrical-to-optical and optical-to-electrical conversions.
With future communications networks being projected to have terabit capacity, light-speed transmission alone does not suffice for the full utilization of available bandwidth. At present, the high bandwidth advantage of optical fibers is still not fully utilized because electronic switching systems are not fast enough for high speed and high throughput optical switching. To solve this problem, the switching functions must be performed in the optical domain, eliminating the optical-to-electrical and electrical-to-optical conversions. Switching and multiplexing with the speed of light is necessary. Consequently, the success of terabit networks relies on the successful development of photonic switching and signal processing systems. Since no electrical-to-optical or optical-to-electrical conversion will be allowed in these systems, pure optical subsystems, such as optical memory cells, optical shift registers, optical serial-to-parallel converters and optical parallel-to-serial converters, will play important roles in these systems.